MS Limited buys “too good” Box Hill HQ

By Marc Pallisco

June 8, 2018 — 9.00am

Not-for-profit information, advice and support group, Multiple Sclerosis Limited, has paid $9.5 million for a brand new Box Hill office “too good to pass up”.

Opposite Box Hill Hospital, the freestanding building at 120 Thames Street was marketed to medical occupiers as a prospective “commercial headquarters”, and with a permit allowing for 20 practitioners.

Staff at the 60 year old organisation, and associated businesses based at the low-rise Blackburn Nerve Centre, at 54 Railway Place, will relocate to the new premises this year. The Blackburn site, close to a train station, is expected to attract apartment builders if offered for sale.

A MS spokesperson told Capital Gain the Box Hill building is “in a better location, has more space” and “is more accessible”.

“As part of the Box Hill health and shopping precincts, being based at 120 Thames Street will mean that our clients will be able to combine visits to MS with other appointments in the area, including the MS Clinic at Box Hill Hospital.

“With extra space, the new building will give us the opportunity to deliver an increased range of services and enable us to develop opportunities to work with other providers in the precinct. An important new benefit will be accessible undercover parking for people with MS”.

Not for profit groups have been active vendors of commercial property recently.

In April, Australian Volunteers International banked $7.3m offloading its 88 Kerr Street, Fitzroy, headquarters. Two years earlier it sold the neighbouring office, which it also occupied, for $7.8m.

AVWA snaps up Springvale warehouse

The Australian Vietnamese Women’s Association has purchased an industrial property near a retail hub and the redeveloped Springvale train station, about 23 kilometres south-east of the CBD.

The group contested against multiple formal offers to secure 8 Parsons Street for $3.91m.

On a 3430 sq m block, the warehouse covers 1964 sq m, and includes four container-height roller doors. It rises nearly eight metres at its highest point. Knight Frank selling agents Steven Salopek (who recently returned to Melbourne commercial agency after an AFL career as a midfielder with Port Adelaide) and Stuart Gill sold the property to the local owner occupier after receiving more than 60 enquiries.

VicRoads renews at Tally Ho

One of the highest profile tenants the business park Tally Ho in East Burwood has renewed for another three years.

Tenants in the park include VicRoads, Hewlett Packard and Motorola.

Government agency VicRoads is speculated to now be paying annual rent circling $1.7m for its 4500 sq m at 12 Lakeside Drive, about 17 kilometres from the CBD, which it has occupied as its South East Service Centre since the mid 1990s.

Industry sources said the deal, also with 350 car spaces, was recently struck by the building’s managing agency, Fitzroys, representatives of which declined to comment when contacted by Capital Gain.

Tally Ho is considered Melbourne’s first master-planned suburban business park – a concept established at the time in Sydney. On the south-east corner of Burwood Highway and Springvale Road, the 26ha estate includes 17 properties including institutional investment grade assets like 13 Vision Drive, which Canberra builder Dennis Millen sold for $22m in 2015 – twice what he paid GPT six years earlier.

Nine months ago, 8 Lakeside Drive traded to the Kador Group for $18.1m against a $17m price guide.

Benetas to build on Doncaster Hill

Benetas is on track to replace a prominent Doncaster Hill restaurant with an aged care facility and retirement village carrying an end value of about $110m.

The PappaRich venue at 534-540 Doncaster Road sold to the health provider for $18m in early 2016 – arguably at the time a boom for Melbourne suburban development sites started (agents speculate the 6232 sq m block would trade for more than $20m, if the same campaign ran today).

The block is now earmarked for a complex containing a 124-bed hospital and 76 retirement living apartments.

Following the acquisition of the Doncaster site, Benetas sold an older-style, low-rise complex in bayside Brighton for $19m – or $8m more than its marketing guide price.

In 2016 another aged care provider, Arcade, paid $13.5m for the ex-Roselyn Court reception centre in Essendon, seven kilometres north-west of the CBD. Historic buildings on the 5012 sq m Raleigh Street site were recently razed to make way for a proposed medium density complex.

That year, Ryman Healthcare paid close to $40m for an 8.9ha ex-Melbourne Business School in Mt Eliza.

PAE banks around $20.5m from Southbank HQ

A Singaporean investor is paying a bullish price, speculated to be about $20.5m, for an under-utilised office with long-term high-density redevelopment potential in Southbank.

With a two year leaseback to Pacific Asia Express at a starting annual rent of $1.1m, 102 Dodds Street is trading well above the $17m price expectation it had attached when it was listed in late March.

On a 1576 sq m block at the south-west corner of Miles Street, the 2404 sq m asset was marketed by Knight Frank’s Danny Clark, Tom Ryan, Andrew Hansen and George Burbury.

It was expected the site would attract local and international developer interest keen to challenge a four-storey height limit currently affecting the land.

In the same week 102 Dodds Street hit the market, another occupier, Wise Employment, also listed its inner-city headquarters for sale with a leaseback. This office at 552 Victoria Street, North Melbourne, also marketed by Knight Frank, traded last month for $15.3m – some $2m more than expected – to a local investor.

It is speculated the offshore investor who is buying 102 Dodds Street also contested to buy 552 Victoria Street, but this couldn’t be confirmed with the agents, who declined to comment on any part of either deal.